Combustor

Compression with Character

COMBUSTOR is a revolutionary method for designing distinctive compressor timbres. With just one plugin, this effect uses adaptive saturation processing to give your music character and crunch.

Each compressor, regardless of its hardware or software configuration, has a distinct tone. This is a result of virtual modeling or real-world circuitry functioning as intended. You can now give your own audio the kind of rich saturation that your tracks merit and give it a unique personality. With five different saturation models and a variety of sound shaping choices, COMBUSTOR offers all the compressor settings you'd expect along with a few surprises. This plugin can add harmonics to bass lines, snap to percussion and make your vocals sing.

Naturally, they've also provided a ton of factory presets to help you get started with creative compression, ranging from aggressive settings to pump up the master mix to more delicate mixes to shape transients and tails. Use these presets as a starting point and then tweak the saturation type, threshold, mix, and other settings to produce your own distinctive sound.

Features

• Compression with built-in adaptive saturation

• 5 different saturation types

• RMS / Peak ratio

• Sidechain mode

• Visual feedback

• Pop & click free bypass

• Responsive & CPU friendly

• Factory presets

• Resizable interface

5 Saturation Types

With multiple saturation models, from subtle to screaming, you can choose the type of adaptive saturation for your own audio. Depending on the characteristics of the incoming signal and your compressor settings, saturation will be applied in different ways. Choose type A for a subtle tube effect, or type E for overblown circuitry... and everything in-between. Experiment for yourself by cycling through the different saturation options and tweaking the saturation mix dial to taste.

Controls You Know

As well as producing creative ways to compress audio, COMBUSTOR is also easy to use, with controls familiar to anyone who’s ever used a standard compressor. All of the normal compressor controls are present and correct: threshold, attack, release, ratio and knee. We’ve even included a sidechain mode for effortless external triggering. With generous parameter ranges, you should be able to achieve almost any compression effect that you need, from transient shaping to glueing tracks together.

Input, Output & Mix Ratio

Use the Input and Output sliders to compensate for any gain boost or reduction caused by the compression settings with up to +/- 24dB attenuation. This allows for very accurate comparisons when A/Bing. Use the Mix ratio control at the bottom centre of the interface to dial in as much (or as little) of the compression as you like. Apply a conservative ratio for subtle dynamic shaping, or push the control to the limit to hear a 100% effected signal.

Visual Feedback

The central stereo meters show exactly what’s happening to the signal as it’s being processed in real time. This allows for accurate monitoring at every stage of the signal chain. As you drag the threshold fader down, you’ll see exactly how much gain reduction is being applied to the audio. Peak indicators will glow red if the signal is running too hot.

Presets

With many included presets, it’s easy to select starting points for your own compression experiments. Tailored to specific instruments, genres and audio effects, these factory options can be used on many types of audio. The presets include everything from subtle dynamic shaping to fully-crushed limiting.